Paris and the need for a sheet of white paper

It certainly is an interesting thing to stand somewhere underground in a dark place that smells of petrol and to wait for a train whose arrival is scheduled exact to the minute. Several thousand people do this thing every day in Paris. Given that these tunnels stink and are a fantastic source of infections it is remarkable that they do it so reliably so regularly. It made me wonder after getting back home why Heidelberg does not have any underground transport systems, or even that many underground constructions. It cannot be because of the Neckar river running through, it must rather have something to do with the hills surrounding the city. Maybe it is harder to dig those tunnels under the city. Perhaps it is something much simpler such as "not enough people". But then, a public railway transport system like the one that Heidelberg does have is a fantastic thing. It is like this silk route of the region you stay in, people are busy sitting in the train with their seperate thoughts of what they are going to do today. Professional and social diversity abounds. You can write stories sitting in the suburban trains. The red caterpillars roll noisily along these metal railway tracks and I have always wondered how do they manage to bend the tracks!

Being a breakfast-seeker in Paris is an olfactory trauma. The air smells of butter wherever you go. Croissants drip with butter, cakes are so soft and soggy that you are full before taking your first bite. Then tell me, how come the Parisians are not fat? The salt-and-rye-with-sour-dough-style of bread has not caught on here. The same attitude is applied to facial expressions. People smile at each other rather than autistic-ally staring at the screens of their mobile phones. I had been here ten years ago and felt that this was a city where you could smell the history in every street you turned into. I don't know how I missed the smell of butter back then. Butter and honey are everywhere you go, on people's faces, in the bakeries.

Is Paris the capital of a welfare state? Does this reflect in the average person's activities and expressions?

Paris seemed far away but it was easy to get there. It was almost too easy, like a computer game that offers no proper challenge. All it took was to book a ticket, and be ascertained of accommodation for the duration of my stay. It is so easy to travel and see places, but still out of habit I just stay put. My perceived freedom of movement is great and as of now there are no responsibilities to keep me rooted to the spot. Couple of thousands might be necessary to travel many places. With a bicycle the cost of travel would go down enormously. It would just take somebody to go along, perhaps? Or can I go alone? Where do I want to go? Do I need to train up my body before I start, so that tiredness does not pose a problem?

People smoke weed or ingest or otherwise consume substances hoping to escape from the rut of their routine. This travel fancy might be just one of those things, as it occurs to me. Maybe going on an expedition of a geographical or ecological nature would be more fulfilling, as I would not be traveling aimlessly and therefore I'd be less likely to meander from known modes of consciousness. Purpose is an interesting thing and can be motivating but unless the aim is clear and seems within reach, a human by default does not have the tendency to cling on. You can read anywhere that in order to become better at achieving abstract aims, it is useful to break the aim into bite-sized pieces, each of which seems within reach. It seems more interesting to me however to increase the size of the bites or simply to improve stamina.

I cannot find a satisfactory end to this post to fulfill what Gertrude Stein says in the movie "Midnight in Paris": The artist's job is not to succumb to despair but to find an antidote for the emptiness of existence. In order to do this, I need: An empty existence. Despair. And finally, an antidote. If I were an artist, I would not despair,  for I would have an identity. The emptiness in life is due to the lack of identity, and searching for this identity, be it through traveling or whatever else, is the antidote. Do not give up.